ALEXANDRIA, Va.—General Motors Co. and Hyundai Motor Group will invest in U.S. factories for electric vehicle battery cells with different South Korean battery manufacturers, The Wall Street Journal reports.
GM, along with Samsun SDI Co., will invest more than $3 billion in a factory which will begin making battery cells in 2026. Hyundai and KS On Co. will partner in a 50-50 venture to invest $5 billion to build a similar plant in Georgia. The Hyundai-KS On factory will have an annual production capacity of 35 GWh, which is sufficient to support the production of 300,000 EVs, and will be located close to Hyundai’s electric vehicle facility, which is slated to begin production in the first part of 2025, while the battery cell plant will start later that year.
Other companies are jumping into enhanced EV battery manufacturing too. In March, LG Energy Solution announced it is building a $5.6 billion facility in Arizona to produce cylindrical batteries for electric vehicles as well as lithium-iron phosphate batteries for energy-storage systems. Also last month, Tesla said it would be opening an EV factory in Mexico. Back in the fall of 2021, Ford Motor Co. announced a collaboration with SK Innovation Co to build three battery facilities in Tennessee and Kentucky, plus a plant to builds F-series electric trucks by 2025.
A few weeks ago, the EPA announced new proposed guidelines for tailpipe emissions, stating that “depending on the compliance pathways manufacturers select to meet the standards, EPA projects that EVs could account for 67% of new light-duty vehicle sales and 46% of new medium-duty vehicle sales in MY 2032.”
In related news, GM plans to stop production of its electric Chevrolet Bolt models by the end of this year, CEO Mary Barra told investors Tuesday. The Chevy Bolt EV and EUV, a larger version of the car, make up the vast majority of the company’s electric vehicle sales to date. However, the battery cells in the cars are an older design and chemistry than the automaker’s newer electric vehicles such as the GMC Hummer and Cadillac Lyriq, according to CNBC.